‘There was no doubt in his mind. For some months past he had found himself entertaining wild and melodramatic suspicions. He told me, for instance, that he had been convinced his wife was administering drugs to him. He had, of course, lived in India, and the practice of wives driving their husbands insane by datura poisoning often comes up there in the native courts. He had suffered fairly often from hallucinations, with confusion of time and place. He denied strenuously that he suspected his wife of infidelity, but nevertheless I think that that was the motivating power. It seems that what actually occurred was that he went into the drawing-room, read the note his wife left saying she was leaving him, and that his way of eluding this fact was to prefer to “kill” her. Hence the hallucination.’
‘You mean he cared for her very much?’ asked Gwenda.
‘Obviously, Mrs Reed.’
‘And he never-recognized-that it was a hallucination?’
‘He had to acknowledge that itmust be-but his inner belief remained unshaken. The obsession was too strong to yield to reason. If we could have uncovered the underlying childish fixation-’
Gwenda interrupted. She was uninterested in childish fixations.
‘But you’re quite sure, you say, that he-that he didn’t do it?’
‘Oh, if that is what is worrying you, Mrs Reed, you can put it right out of your head. Kelvin Halliday, however jealous he may have been of his wife, was emphatically not a killer.’
Dr Penrose coughed and picked up a small shabby black book.
‘If you would like this, Mrs Reed, you are the proper person to have it. It contains various jottings set down by your father during the time he was here. When we turned over his effects to his executor (actually a firm of solicitors), Dr McGuire, who was then Superintendent, retained this as part of the case history. Your father’s case, you know, appears in Dr McGuire’s book-only under initials, of course. Mr K.H. If you would like this diary-’
Gwenda stretched out her hand eagerly.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I should like it very much.’
In the train on the way back to London, Gwenda took out the shabby little black book and began to read.
She opened it at random.
Kelvin Halliday had written:
I suppose these doctor wallahs know their business…It all sounds such poppycock. Was I in love with my mother? Did I hate my father? I don’t believe a word of it…I can’t help feeling this is a simple police case-criminal court-not a crazy loony-bin matter. And yet-some of these people here-so natural, so reasonable-just like everyone else-except when you suddenly come across the kink. Very well, then, it seems that I, too, have a kink…
I’ve written to James…urged him to communicate with Helen…Let her come and see me in the flesh if she’s alive…He says he doesn’t know where she is…that’s because he knows that she’s dead and that I killed her…he’s a good fellow, but I’m not deceived…Helen is dead…
When did I begin to suspect her? A long time ago…Soon after we came to Dillmouth…Her manner changed…She was concealing something…I used to watch her…Yes, and she used to watch me…
Did she give me drugs in my food? Those queer awful nightmares. Not ordinary dreams…living nightmares…I know it was drugs…Only she could have done that…Why?…There’s some man…Some man she was afraid of…
Let me be honest. I suspected, didn’t I, that she had a lover? There was someone-I know there was someone-She said as much to me on the boat…Someone she loved and couldn’t marry…It was the same for both of us…I couldn’t forget Megan…How like Megan little Gwennie looks sometimes. Helen played with Gwennie so sweetly on the boat…Helen…You are so lovely, Helen…
Is Helen alive? Or did I put my hands round her throat and choke the life out of her? I went through the dining- room door and I saw the note-propped up on the desk, and then-and then-all black-just blackness. But there’s no doubt about it…I killed her…Thank God Gwennie’s all right in New Zealand. They’re good people. They’ll love her for Megan’s sake. Megan-Megan, how I wish you were here…
It’s the best way…No scandal…The best way for the child. I can’t go on. Not year after year. I must take the short way out. Gwennie will never know anything about all this. She’ll never know her father was a murderer…
Tears blinded Gwenda’s eyes. She looked across at Giles, sitting opposite her. But Giles’s eyes were riveted on the opposite corner.
Aware of Gwenda’s scrutiny, he motioned faintly with his head.
Their fellow passenger was reading an evening paper. On the outside of it, clearly presented to their view was a melodramatic caption:Who were the men in her life?
Slowly, Gwenda nodded her head. She looked down at the diary.
There was someone-I know there was someone…
Chapter 11. The Men in Her Life
Miss Marple crossed Sea Parade and walked along Fore Street, turning up the hill by the Arcade. The shops here were the old-fashioned ones. A wool and art needlework shop, a confectioner, a Victorian-looking Ladies’ Outfitter and Draper and others of the same kind.
Miss Marple looked in at the window of the art needlework shop. Two young assistants were engaged with customers, but an elderly woman at the back of the shop was free.
Miss Marple pushed open the door and went in. She seated herself at the counter and the assistant, a pleasant woman with grey hair, asked, ‘What can I do for you, madam?’
Miss Marple wanted some pale blue wool to knit a baby’s jacket. The proceedings were leisurely and unhurried. Patterns were discussed, Miss Marple looked through various children’s knitting books and in the course of it discussed her great-nephews and nieces. Neither she nor the assistant displayed impatience. The assistant had attended to customers such as Miss Marple for many years. She preferred these gentle, gossipy, rambling old ladies to the impatient, rather impolite young mothers who didn’t know what they wanted and had an eye for the cheap and showy.
‘Yes,’ said Miss Marple. ‘I think that will be very nice indeed. And I always find Storkleg so reliable. It really doesn’t shrink. I think I’ll take an extra two ounces.’
The assistant remarked that the wind was very cold today, as she wrapped up the parcel.
‘Yes, indeed, I noticed it as I was coming along the front. Dillmouth has changed a good deal. I have not been here for, let me see, nearly nineteen years.’
‘Indeed, madam? Then you will find a lot of changes. The Superb wasn’t built then, I suppose, nor the Southview Hotel?’
‘Oh no, it was quite a small place. I was staying with friends…A house called St Catherine’s-perhaps you know it? On the Leahampton road.’
But the assistant had only been in Dillmouth a matter of ten years.
Miss Marple thanked her, took the parcel, and went into the draper’s next door. Here, again, she selected an elderly assistant. The conversation ran much on the same lines, to an accompaniment of summer vests. This time, the assistant responded promptly.
‘That would be Mrs Findeyson’s house.’
‘Yes-yes. Though the friends I knew had it furnished. A Major Halliday and his wife and a baby girl.’
‘Oh yes, madam. They had it for about a year, I think.’
‘Yes. He was home from India. They had a very good cook-she gave me a wonderful recipe for baked apple pudding-and also, I think, for gingerbread. I often wonder what became of her.’
‘I expect you mean Edith Pagett, madam. She’s still in Dillmouth. She’s in service now-at Windrush Lodge.’
‘Then there were some other people-the Fanes. A lawyer, I think he was!’
